Blog Post

It’s been prevalent on online news sites, the increased number of cyber attacks taking place in South Africa and around the world on some of the biggest organisations and even on small businesses. The increase in phishing , ransomware and other attacks that aim to steal and use company information has led to an increased need for network security but, are most businesses protected from these cyber attacks?

many businesses are aware of the threats in the digital world but not as many take the appropriate action as business owners are under the impression that basic protection solutions such as Antivirus software is sufficient to protect against online threats but, when it comes to their network, majority of businesses in SA do not have sufficient network protection. With the increase in data being stored and shared between computers in a network and online, and the GDPR and POPI regulations that manage how that data is shared and stored becoming a big influencer, businesses need more than just the basics.

A network firewall is the technology that is becoming a requirement for South African businesses as much as the rest of the world and even greater still than just having a firewall is ensuring that it is correctly configured. To ensure your business is safe from cyber threats configure your firewall to:

Cater for Intrusion Protection System (IPS)

Segment LAN’s into smaller subnets (VLANs)

Enforce the principle of least privilege

Enable anti-spoofing filters

Block inbound traffic coming from an internal IP source

Whilst these and other rules are important, the management of your firewall is as important and it is crucial that you label your rules adequately and do regular firewall audits to ensure that it is running as it should.

Firewalls aren’t the be all end of all of security when it comes to your business network but incorporating them into your security strategy is key to protecting your business.